Kerry apologizes for ‘apartheid’ comment about Israel

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of State John Kerry must be wishing he could carry around his own editing program so he could rewind a statement he made about Israel.

The Daily Beast broke the story that during the recent meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Washington, Kerry told world leaders that if Israel doesn’t reach an agreement with the Palestinians, it runs the risk of being “an apartheid state with second-class citizens.”

And it didn’t take long for Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas to call for Kerry’s resignation, “It is my belief that Secretary Kerry has proven himself unsuitable for the position he holds. And therefore, before any further harm is done to our national security interests and to our critical alliance with the nation of Israel, that John Kerry should offer President Obama his resignation and the president should accept it.”

California Democratic senator Barbara Boxer accepted Kerry’s apology for the statement she earlier tweeted as being “nonsensical and ridiculous.”

And in one of this story’s strangest twists, Trilateral Commission president Joseph Nye sent a letter to Kerry to apologize that someone recorded what was supposed to be a private meeting.

Kerry says he if could rewind the tape, he would have chosen a different word, but that brings up the question of just what word is the same as apartheid, but not.